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FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. \u2014 Before Hollywood, California, became America\u2019s undisputed film capital, silent-film studios flocked to two equally sunny locales to strike it big: Palm Beach and Jacksonville.<\/p>\n
These winter movie meccas rich in warmth and inexpensive labor drew some 30 New York- and Chicago-based studios to the thriving Florida cities during the 1910s. Here, studios made over 300 mostly short films and marketed them to a movie-obsessed public. By decade\u2019s end, the studios were gone or bankrupt and its silent films lost to time and neglect \u2014 though it wouldn\u2019t be the last time the Sunshine State lured Hollywood back.<\/p>\n
The legacy of films using Florida as both a character and a glamorous backdrop will be unspooled in the new memorabilia exhibit \u201cSunshine Cinema: Florida in Film,\u201d opening Friday, Nov. 14, at the Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum in West Palm Beach, Florida.<\/p>\n
A century-spanning chronology of movies filmed in Florida with a Palm Beach emphasis, the show comes from the Historical Society of Palm Beach County and features 25 artifacts, iconic props and movie costumes, from a 1910s Thomas Edison kinetoscope to Tony Montana\u2019s tropical shirt in \u201cScarface.\u201d Many items are on loan from NBCUniversal and the Edison and Ford Winter Estates in Fort Myers.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve got the earliest images of Palm Beach ever captured on film, the golden age of movie palaces, the age of the drive-in up to COVID-19\u2019s effects on the local movie industry,\u201d says Erica Grant, the historical society\u2019s director of curatorial affairs. \u201cIt\u2019s a lot. I don\u2019t know if we\u2019ll ever get to put on a sequel to this show, so we wanted to pack in as much information as we could.\u201d<\/p>\n
Grant couldn\u2019t think of a better place to start than 1910s Jacksonville, home to Metro Pictures (later Hollywood titan Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) and an upstart named Norman Studios, where Richard Norman produced groundbreaking \u201crace films\u201d casting Black actors in positive roles in the segregated South. Clips from the 1926 aviation romance,\u201cThe Flying Ace,\u201d<\/a> one of Norman\u2019s last surviving films, will be shown in the museum\u2019s 2,000-square-foot gallery.<\/p>\n \u201cIt features an all-African American cast and went on to inspire entire generations to dare to be a pilot, an aviator,\u201d Grant says. \u201cIt\u2019s the power of film to move generations.\u201d<\/p>\n Florida East Coast Railway expansion drew more tourism to the Palm Beaches, and by 1917 filmmakers had already made \u201cIsland of Happiness\u201d and \u201cIsle of Tomorrow,\u201d two pictures capturing glamorous life in Palm Beach and the bluebloods who lived there, Grant adds. Even silent-movie stars like Lionel and Ethel Barrymore, Rudolph Valentino and Billie Burke (later Glinda in the original \u201cWizard of Oz\u201d) swooped in for winter visits, she says.<\/p>\n \u201cLillian Gish, Bebe Daniels \u2014 they all made a habit of coming to Palm Beach to film. They set the tone for class expectations and beauty norms for audiences to follow,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Other sections of the exhibit feature 1890s clips from Thomas Edison \u2014 including one of Wild West sharpshooter Annie Oakley firing a rifle \u2014 alongside century-old Palm Beach photos from the Historical Society\u2019s collection. One section on golden-age movie houses spotlights the old Bijou Theatre in West Palm Beach and Lake Worth Playhouse as lavish gathering spaces for premieres.<\/p>\n By the 1940s, Palm Beach enjoyed a second filmmaking boom, and another section on display confronts Hollywood\u2019s \u201charmful, not-so-great\u201d history of racial stereotyping from that period, Grant says. For example, the 1953 Rock Hudson Western, \u201cSeminole,\u201d also screening in the gallery, depicts characters in war paint attacking white men against a score of thudding drums.<\/p>\n \u201cSo we break that scene apart to encourage visitors to confront how stereotypical images on film try to replace reality,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n Among the big attention-grabbers are the memorabilia, including Tom Hanks\u2019 NASA suit from \u201cApollo 13,\u201d Vin Diesel\u2019s tank top from \u201c2 Fast 2 Furious,\u201d and the sheriff uniform worn by Roy Scheider\u2019s character, Chief Martin Brody, in \u201cJaws 2.\u201d<\/p>\n A section is devoted to late actor and Jupiter resident Burt Reynolds, featuring scripts and movie costumes donated to the museum by Reynold\u2019s niece, Nancy Hess.<\/p>\n Visitors also will find interactive touchscreens where they can create movie posters or build a movie scene from scratch.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are thrilled to bring this dynamic exhibition to life,\u201d says Jeremy Johnson, president and CEO of the Historical Society of Palm Beach County. \u201c\u2018Sunshine Cinema\u2019 celebrates not just the movies filmed here, but the people, places and legacy behind them.\u201d<\/p>\n What:<\/strong> \u201cSunshine Cinema: Florida in Film,\u201d presented by the Historical Society of Palm Beach County<\/p>\n When:<\/strong> Opening reception 6-8 p.m. Nov. 13; exhibit runs Nov. 14-May 30<\/p>\n Where:<\/strong> Richard and Pat Johnson Palm Beach County History Museum, 300 N. Dixie Highway, West Palm Beach<\/a><\/p>\nIf you go<\/h3>\n